articles

Here are the collected and future (as they become written) editorials, ideas, diatribes, screeds, rants, laments, didacticisms, ipsedixitisms, tirades, ponderings, &c., of the author. This is not fiction. More will be added over time.

And Now for the Maine Attraction — You might think that a guide just gets paid to go fishing. There is that; but let me tell you about a few incidents from my last few years in the woods.

Eddie — I still don’t know how to tell whether a life is at stake when someone asks: Can I talk to you? I do know that is why I now stop and try to hear the message most of the time when someone speaks to me.

Message in a Bottle — You might have seen me driving around Lincoln on Monday and Tuesday, window rolled down, slowly slurping from that half-gallon bottle. I held it so the label could easily be visible: Del Monte Prune Juice.

Directions to the Allagash Locomotives — A pair of abandoned, standard-gauge steam locomotives of the Eagle Lake & West Branch Railroad stand in a small clearing deep in the north woods of Maine. Canoeists on the Allagash Wilderness Waterway go ashore and see them. This is a guide to finding them if you don’t intend to canoe the entire Allagash River.

WWJD About Terrorism — I wrote this article in 2005. George W. Bush’s second term as President had just begun and Barack H. Obama’s two terms had not yet been dreamed of, except by himself. In 2005 I stated: “A long war has only just begun… I am persuaded that we are in it for a very long, long time.” The eleven years that have passed since this was first published have only borne that out. As for what-would-Jesus-do, I stand by what I originally wrote in 2005.

The Fall of Great Northern Paper Company — Perhaps unique among American employers because it was so remote from notice and completely surrounded by the natural resources that provided both raw material and power, Great Northern Paper Company in 1977 was the product of a century of American industrial Zeitgeist. Its 4,200 workers offered living proof that capitalism works and that both the employer and its people need merely to be left alone and they will indeed get it right. But, within a decade, the impulse of government to protect everything by regulating it to death had injected a lethal dose of too much caring. This is a memoir of those days.

Fading Photographs — People of my generation have a responsibility that our parents let slip, to identify the people in the oldest photographs in our possession before those old pictures become completely useless. If everyone of my parents’ generation had done that diligently, then the oldest photos in existence, in everyone’s families, could mostly have been labeled for future generations. I am working on it with the photographs in my possession, but here is an example of the challenges I face.

Albert Jay Nock — The wisdom and wit of America’s fiercest social critic and denunciator of the State — you will find it on a separate site which I maintain here at WordPress.

Johnny Monroe’s Junkyard — In the summer of 1970 I was still looking for a 1939 Chrysler straight-eight motor. An issue of the Maine Sunday Telegram that summer brought me to the most ethereal, enchanting place I’ve ever been. The newspaper reported on a man from away who was searching for his ancestors’ graves in South Thomaston. He had found the Thorndike cemetery, but the article played on his complaint that the graveyard was surrounded by an immense junkyard of pre-war cars.

The Execution of Terri Schiavo — Terri Schiavo, age 41, died March 31, 2005, seven years after a judge in the Florida ordered her put to death in a most horrible manner. She was charged with no crime, had no defense attorney, was given no trial, and had no recourse in the courts. And the rest of the country paid little or no attention.

Find me on:

Acknowledgments

David A. Woodbury is the author of all content posted at this site unless otherwise credited. Some stories and articles posted here have come from the books Tales to Harm Your Mind, Fire Wind & Yesterday, and The Clover Street News, also from the web sites DamnYankee.com and WelcomeToLincolnMaine.com (with thanks to Lee and Connie Rand), Bangor Metro magazine, and other sources. It never has been the author's intention to write for a living, therefore all material here is available without charge with grateful acknowledgment of WordPress for making this opportunity available at no charge. All photographs on this site were taken by or are owned by David A. Woodbury unless otherwise credited. All content, except Brother Lawrence (The Practice of the Presence of God), is protected by copyright and, except for brief quotes for innocent purposes, no copyrighted material on this site may be sold or disseminated by any means without express permission of the author.